Marc Zicree - Ghostlands

And Papa Sky had been more than willing to listen.

Not that Papa seemed to have any agenda, nor even any judgment-or at least, judgment he expressed.

And absurdly, impossibly, after a dozen pointless years of therapy, in which the only discernible change to his life Stern had perceived had been the financing of a yacht and any number of Caddies for the sedentary quack who’d sat silently listening to him those interminable hours, with none of the empathy nor wisdom this old black music man brought to bear…

Ely Stern found himself changing.

Not that he didn’t still have that same burning rage that drove him to smash and destroy, to lash out blindly…

But now there was a new thing within him, like Papa Sky’s gentling hand on his bloody, fractured self, urging him to pause, to reconsider, to look at the world with fresh eyes.

Incredibly, Papa Sky, that old blind man, had given him new sight.

He could choose to be the destroyer, could act upon his blazing dark impulses, and be utterly alone.

Or he could try another path, one far more dangerous to him, exhilarating and fraught with peril.

But did the world, at this absurdly late stage of the game, allow the possibility of such change?

Silly question.

The world of late had been nothing but change.

Which left him with the question of who he was, and what precisely he was going to do with the rest of his life.

As Papa Sky served him hot chicken soup and serenaded him with soaring saxophone medleys of Gershwin and Irving Berlin and Cole Porter, Ely Stern had looked into himself for an answer, for meaning, and to his amazement discovered…

Christina.

To find her, to protect her, that and nothing more, was all his soul desired.

Remarkable.

It was self-interest driving him, of course, as it always had been, but now bent to a different purpose.

He knew by then where she would be drawn, inevitably, and knew the only course that would lead him to her.

He opened his mind to the voices, to the One Voice, to the Source. The wind would carry him there, and the barrier he had seen in his dreams, the barrier that would burn lesser creatures, would not burn him.

He rose before he was properly mended, groaned with the effort…and found Papa Sky facing him on the doorstep.

“I figger you gonna need me around to keep you honest,” the old man said.

Stern laughed. Like his own monstrous self, it was the undeniable truth.

And as the two of them traveled their scorching road, Ely Stern found to his amazement that Papa Sky held within him not only wisdom but power, too, that he could more than stand on his own two feet, as well as ride on the back of a dragon.

They made their way to South Dakota, and knocked on the Devil’s door.

“You really expect us to believe that?” Cal Griffin asked Stern, as he sat around the big circle with the others-Colleen, Doc, Mama Diamond, Papa Sky, Shango, Enid and Howard Russo, Inigo and his mother. Christina floated nearby like a bubble containing all the world’s rainbows, while the other inhabitants of the sanctuary, the Indian families and the shamans, the holy ones and medicine men, busied themselves in the deeper recesses of the cavern.

“No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die, ” Stern replied, in his best Ernst Blofeld Goldfinger impersonation. He crouched low in the vast cavern, wings tucked in against his body, arched cathedral-like above his demon head, a black thing in the blackness. He glowered at Cal, showing switchblade teeth. “You really expect me to give two shits what you believe?”

“Now, now, we not gonna get anywhere like that,” Papa Sky soothed. “We all on the same side here.”

“I must admit, I find that a challenging concept to accept,” Doc Lysenko remarked.

“Yeah, lizard boy,” Colleen added, “if you’re such a reformed character, how come you’ve been the Source Project’s delivery boy? What’s with all the smash-and-grab in those gem shops?”

Stern fumed, but Papa Sky said simply, “Tell the folks, Ely.”

Stern sighed, glanced at Christina, who hovered glowing nearby, her face a mask that betrayed little of her feelings. “It wasn’t going to let her go, that was certain from the gitgo, and It had half a mind to atomize Papa and my humble self right fucking there and then, it’s touchy that way….”

Stern looked off, and his eyes narrowed, remembering. “But then I realized-it was a potential client. So the pertinent question wasn’t what I needed but what It would need. I had to put myself in Its shoes, even if It didn’t have shoes anymore, or feet to put them on.”

His eyes slid back to Cal and the others. “This was all surmise, you understand. I wasn’t really seeing It, just a manifestation, that fucking glowing scarecrow that changed from one to another to another….”

“And what precisely did you discern was Its need?” Doc asked.

Stern shrugged. “Even though It was growing in power, It still had limitations, vulnerabilities. It had plans, ways to safeguard Itself and gain primacy, but It needed someone to put matters into motion, and those gray mental midgets It ruled”-here he glanced at Inigo and Howie-“no offense, didn’t have, let us say, the initiative to run things on the ground.”

He looked at Christina, and his expression softened. “So I cut a deal with It. Reconstitute her as human, or at least looking human, before she was burnt up like coal in an oven, fodder like the rest of the flares, set her up in digs like she had back home.

“Round about then, I came upon this one,” he flicked a clawed finger at Inigo, “stuck like a fly in jelly. He couldn’t get out, but It didn’t seem inclined to pick him off, either. He was under the radar, It wasn’t paying attention to him. So I figured I’d give him a job….”

Colleen shook her head. “And you did all this ’cause you’re wearing the white hat now?”

Stern’s eyes blazed. “You may not have noticed, but this isn’t a comic strip. Christ, I am so glad I didn’t have to travel with the lot of you.”

“Now, now, Ely,” Papa Sky crooned. “We all gettin’ hot under the collar here. You remember your blood pressure.”

Stern nodded, and Cal could see him struggling to force calm.

“You’re telling us,” said Cal, “that you stole all those gems, helped set up the Spirit Radio, just to keep Christina safe?”

“Not just that…”

“What then?”

May Catches the Enemy spoke up. “That Thing in the mountain, it’s crazy scared, wants to swallow up the four corners, swallow up everything, so it can be safe.”

“How do you know that?” Shango asked.

May Catches the Enemy shrugged, the firelight catching highlights in her black hair. “You feel it. It’s in the air, the water, in everything.”

“So eventually, there’d be no more dragons,” Stern added, “no more people or grunters or flares-just It, a totality of everything.”

He glared at Colleen. “So if you don’t want to believe I did this all to help her ”-he nodded toward Tina-” you just tell yourself I did it for self-preservation.”

A tense silence descended over them.

“So It designed the Spirit Radio…” Doc prompted.

“Stuck here in the Black Hills, It knows It’s a target,” Stern observed. “But if It can open up conduits to other locales, exist simultaneously in a number of places-”

“No one thing can kill it,” Shango finished.

“Give the man a set of dishes,” Stern said. “The one in Iowa’s the first of many. There’s a bunch more in the planning stages all across the U.S. That’s why we have to move now.”